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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
That's the kind of statement that takes you from the left of Noam Chomsky to the right of Strom Thurmond.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.![]()
Ow,ow ow my head is spinning,right of Strom Thurmond? *random twitches* it's a ''dooozy''
Sadly since I'm going over to tutoring,I probably won't be able to watch these debates tonight,...I just know that forgive me for this cliche: I have a bad feeling about this
@Tao: They were well within their rights to split from the Union. They joined voluntarily, they should be allowed to leave voluntarily. I mean, I'm sure we can all agree that slaver was wrong, and stuff, but that's not what the Civil War was actually about, and it wasn't even an issue until the Emancipation Proclamation that was near the end of the war, was to help ward off foreign support for the South, and only freed slaves in places the Union didn't actually control. The War was about whether or not the South had the right to split from the Union. I feel like it did.
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Earlier, I considered making a snarky comment about how sometimes, you go so far in one direction you end up on the opposite end of the spectrum.
This is one of those occasions, and I'm no longer snarky.
In other news. Obama's up again today. I would appreciate it if you started reconsidering the pessimism.
edited 15th Oct '12 4:49:25 PM by Arkasas
@deathpigeon: Scholars generally tend to agree that an individual state can't just leave whenever it feels like it, according to the constitution. It's a binding contract, so it needs consensus agreement for a secession to happen.
The Civil War may not have been a crusade to free the slaves, but slavery was definitely the factor that caused a schism in the United States throughout its history up to then.
I'm sorry to continue the derail, but the Civil War was about slavery.
Alexander Stephens, the Confederacy's vice president, said the following in his famous Cornerstone speech in March 1861, just weeks before the war started:
Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us...
@pigeon: This is off-topic, but:
- Didn't the Southern states signed the Consitution, and joined by contract? When you break the contract, the other side has the right to go after you in what's considered suitable.
- If slavery wasn't the issue, what was?
...and ninja'd on both points.
edited 15th Oct '12 4:56:47 PM by chihuahua0
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Better. Saying otherwise is just foolishness. We're not out of the woods yet but unemployment has been dropping and the DOW is back to pre-recession levels. People might say that unemployment isn't as good as, say, Reagan but that's ignoring the fact that Reagan had better public sector employment growth. You could blame Obama for that I guess but it's really austerity that's preventing that and Obama is not an advocate of austerity.
It's a stupid scare tactic that says shadowy bureaucrats are going to be dictating whether or not granny gets her pills/surgery and by proxy whether or not she lives. Automatically reject anyone that uses that as an argument since the new healthcare law actually makes that shit illegal.
edited 15th Oct '12 5:02:49 PM by Kostya
@Yuan: "Death Panels" typically refers to a governmental body written into the Affordable Care Act, made up of various bureacrats. It's supposedly about deciding about which person deserves treatment and which doesn't, but it is in fact about determining which treatments are practical and should be covered by Medicare/Medicaid, with the purpose of lowering costs and increasing efficiency by keeping away from bullshit treatments.
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen FryThen what is reliable? We've had the same source calculating these numbers for years and they've been applying the same formulas and data collection methods the entire time. There's no reason to think now they're lying unless you don't like the results because they don't fit your personal narrative.
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It (the law) also prevents insurance companies from regulating what treatments you get on the basis of cost. In effect it makes death panels illegal.
edited 15th Oct '12 5:08:12 PM by Kostya
@Deviant: There is some truth as to the reservations about the 7.8% statistic, but I find that statistic to be helpful. It may not be completely accurate, but it does give a good gauge as to the health of the economy, as it is measured consistently across the years using the same metrics.
So I don't trust the number itself, but I do trust that it shows improvement.
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen FryAt the risk of imitating a mod, can people please, for the love of all that is holy, stop saying "Sorry to continue the derail, but here's a completely irrelevant post that contributes only to the derail"?
Really hoping that Obama comes out strong here, but fervent Republican patriotism is going to render the facts irrelevant tonight, I fear.
My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.Well, in terms of factors out of control, we could be better off than this. I don't know if I can say the Bush Adminstration's policies caused it, but the 2009 recession gives the impression that whatever recovery we have isn't satisfactory, and that's what the Republican campaign may be trying to capitalize on right now. The VP debate was largely about "This is better off than worse" vs "This isn't good enough".
In terms of what we can do, it's certainly better than we had before.
Technically Clinton caused the recovery by deregulating things but Bush made it worse by not re-regulating. He also fought two unpaid for wars and lowered taxes to ridiculous levels which racked up our massive debt. Obama has had trouble getting these things under control, that part's true, but that's mostly because the GOP has been fighting with him. It is for this reason that I don't blame him.
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Why? They signed a contract and broke it. The US had every right to go after them. Freeing the slaves was just a plus in my book.
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Agreed. The number might not be accurate but whatever it really is it's clearly dropping.
edited 15th Oct '12 5:11:06 PM by Kostya

For an immoral war to fight against something which the southern states were well within their rights to do.